Of Gods, Old and New
by Marquise de Nile
Summary: Madara and Kaguya, and the end of the world. The meaning of divinity. The re-imagining of chapter 678.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Summary: Madara and Kaguya, and the end of the world. The meaning of divinity. The re-imagining of chapter 678.

Rating: K

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**Of Gods, Old and New**

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Ecstasy.

Madara is in a permanent state of ecstasy.

He thought that he knew the meaning of power. There is a reason why he was acclaimed as the God of Shinobi, with only his Senju equivalent keeping the scales even. Keeping him in check.

But that balance no longer exists.

Through years and years of seeking knowledge about the secrets of the world, years and years of personal sacrifice, of scheming and manipulating, of staying in the shadows, _of_ _hiding like a rat, _Madara tipped the scales in his favour. He finally steps onto the battlefield again, triumphantly, and all he wants to do is to laugh. Everything is now within his reach – everything he ever wished for, everything he worked to obtain. The puzzles he painstakingly moved fall into their rightful place, just as planned. All he needs to do is to is to simply stretch out his hands and pluck this ripe fruit of his life's labour, as if it's hanging from a low tree branch.

So Madara takes it all, without hesitation, just burning conviction. It's his right.

The power coils in his body, dense and heavy, but filling him with unusual lightness. It oozes out of the pores of his skin, like the sap of the tree, then returns, absorbed back almost immediately. With his every cell, he can taste the power he holds and he thinks that maybe he's not made of flesh anymore; flesh that is so predominantly weak and ugly that he turns his nose in disgust. However, he knows it's only an assumption, as he still draws measured, steady breaths and his heart beats to the drum of the infinite power.

He feels more alive than ever. It seems laughable to him, as he's now immortal and he can truly grasp the meaning of that. The matters of life and death no longer concern him; he simply _is_. And even if he wasn't, he still would be. It's an insignificant detail in any case so Madara moves on.

The full power of Rikudo is so vast, it's incomprehensible to a human mind. The best comparison would be throwing an ant into the ocean. Does the ant realize the expanse and depth of the ocean? No, it's just another puddle to its underdeveloped, rachitic senses. It's unable to compute the truth of what ocean really is. The same could be said about humans, the most intelligent of the lifeforms. The vastness of the ocean exceeds the limits of their understanding. Madara's power is much, much more than that.

Madara sees the truth, for at last he is in the position to observe it, and he is awestruck with its beauty and completeness. What he is about to do makes even more sense now, as he realizes that while the room called the universe is absolutely perfect, he would be only smoothing out the odds and ends laying around like abandoned toys. It won't affect the reality in any way, he'll only bring about another of its natural states.

Order and disorder. Two sides of the same coin. Once in his previous, mortal life, Madara flipped it and decided on one. It's time to make that promise come true.

Order it is.

Madara denies gravity, effortlessly floating up into the sky as it accommodates to his will. The red disc of a moon reflects the third eye on his forehead and he activates the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

_Sleep._

The moon turns into a new sun and its benevolent brightness illuminates the world and chases away the shadows. The pure light descends from the heavens and cleanses the earth, wiping away the foulness and restoring the lost innocence. All of the beings are ensnared and rejoin the great cycle at once, becoming the part of a single entity from which their ancestors emerged eons ago.

Madara observes this novelty with all due curiosity, however it still seems to him like it's not nearly enough. He's busy deciding how to proceed, as there are many ways, when he senses something _extraordinary._

It's another existence.

The particles of energy flow and bind with each other right before his eyes and they form a human-shaped figure. She's made of clouds and light. She's ethereal, but to him she's also more real than anything else. The power inside him hums in resonance with her being and Madara shudders with the feeling of kinship with this woman.

They even look strikingly similar to each other, the robes and body colouring the same, except that she possesses the Byakugan while he sports the Rinnegan in both of his eyesockets. The pale lavender, opaque jewels pierce through him silently and his own purple concentric rings bore onto the woman without a word. They're at a stalemate and Madara comes to understand that she's The Goddess.

"Who are you?" he asks impassively.

"I am Kaguya," she replies simply and Madara starts, recognizing this name.

"You're Rikudo's mother."

"Yes, I am the First," she informs him. "You are the Last."

He wants to ask for more but she extends her pale hand to him and his own arm raises accordingly in response to her action. There's no stopping it and Madara doesn't desire to resist this either. They clasp their hands together.

The Beginning meets the End with ecstatic joy as the cycle becomes completed.

Kaguya looks at Madara and caresses his cheek with a fond smile, which he reciprocates.

"You did well," she says. "Come, beloved child. Come and dance with me."

She pulls and he follows, and they fall into the rhythm of the stars, pulsing of quazars and bursts of supernovas, seamlessly fleeting around the horizon of infinity. The earth cracks and erupts under their steps, reforms and reshapes until the last of old structures melts away and joins the foundations of the world.

Madara and Kaguya whirl around the same axis, their places so interchangeable that it doesn't matter who is where, because Madara is Kaguya and Kaguya is Madara. The two become one in their divine spin, as the two sides of a coin, as Yin which carries Yang, as Yang which carries Yin.

This is their Cosmos.

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And the cycle begins anew.

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End file.
